


The Shape Of The Soul Beneath The Skin

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, I Had Feelings Now Everyone Gets To Have Them Too, Kissing, Like Happy Crying But Crying, Oral Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Reunion Sex, Soft and Sweet And Tender, Spoilers for Episode 57 Of Campaign 2, Yeza Loves His Wife So Much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 14:48:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18390575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Veth makes a sound in the back of her throat, and her body may be different but the sounds she makes when she’s aroused are the same. She breaks the kiss and leans her forehead against his collarbone, her heavy breathing nearly in sync with his.“Do you want to—““Yes,” Veth says forcefully, and Yeza isn’t surprised. Veth’s appetites had always been healthy in the regard. “I didn’t think I ever would. Not… the way I am, and not without you. But you’re here, and I want to. Just— could we keep it dark in here?”“Whatever makes you comfortable,” Yeza says immediately. “But your shape doesn’t disgust me, you know that right? You’re you. You could be a manticore, or a gnoll, or those fish things you fought in the ocean….”“Merrow,” Veth interjects.“Merrow. You could be one of those and I would still love you.” He tilts his head thoughtfully, knowing she can see it in the dark. “Though it would make sex very interesting.”





	The Shape Of The Soul Beneath The Skin

**Author's Note:**

> My heart is still so full after that episode. So full. Who else cried when Yeza grabbed all the covers off the bed to sleep with Nott on the floor?

Veth’s hand in Yeza’s feels real as she leads him up the stairs to their room. Not much else does, not much else _has,_ not since the night of the attack. It’s all been fire and chains and endless caverns below the earth, then gnawing hunger and thirst as he had crouched in the shadows of his cell as they asked him questions. When he had first heard that _other_ voice, that bright and cheerful voice so different from all the others, he had thought he had finally gone mad. When that voice had mentioned Veth, he had been sure of it. But here he was, Veth’s hand in his, with a full stomach and a bed waiting for him, and if this is madness or some sort of dream, he never wants to wake up.

“Your friends kept calling you Nott,” Yeza says as they walk down the hallway. “Do you— would you want me to call you that?” And oh, what interesting friends his wife had! She hadn’t really had any friends in the village, he was so happy to see her surrounded by people who obviously cared about her, who had come with her all this way, just to free him and to reunite him with his wife. They were all a little… intense, and he still wasn’t sure _what_ Caduceus was, but they all seemed like good people.

Yeza watches as his wife’s ears droop, as her shoulders stiffen for just a moment as she unlocks their bedroom door. “No,” she says quietly. “I asked them to keep calling me Nott, but I don’t think— just keep calling me Veth. Please.”

“Sure, sure, of course!” Yeza says quickly.

Veth bustles around the room, covering the windows as Yeza strips off all but his smallclothes and crawls into bed. An actual bed, with pillows and blankets and a mattress, he could almost cry for the luxury of it after spending weeks sleeping on a bedroll with only hard stone beneath him.

“In the morning we’ll see about getting you some new clothes,” Veth says in her practical way as she tucks the blankets around him. “Or maybe Jester can mend these ones.”

Yeza falls asleep before he can say thank you, before he can tell Veth he loves her, before he can wish her a good night and sweet dreams. For the first time in weeks his sleep is deep and dreamless, so he’s not sure what wakes him some time later. He rolls over and feels for where Veth should be, but only finds cold, smooth sheets.

“Veth?” Yeza whispers. He can’t see in the dark, but she must be here with him, right? He can hear someone else breathing nearby, deep and even, and when he leans over the side of the bed and squints, he can just make out a small shape sleeping on the floor. When he gets out of bed and puts a hand on her arm, he feels her tense up.

“It’s just me,” he whispers. “Why are you on the floor?”

“I—thought it would be more comfortable down here. I wanted to give you space,” she whispers back, and that’s so like her, to think about him before her own self. It hurts his heart a little.

“I’ll join you,” he says, already pulling the blankets and pillows off the bed and making a nest on the floor beside her. It’s not as comfortable as the bed, but that doesn’t matter. He’d sleep on hot rocks if it meant sleeping next to his wife, feeling the warmth of her against him. He falls asleep to the feeling of her running her hands through his hair, another simple thing he never thought he would feel again.

When Yeza wakes up for the third time, it’s to Veth wrapped around him and this time it’s his turn to stroke her hair and smile. It could almost be any early morning they spent together at home, grabbing a few soft moments of intimacy before Luke woke up. He can remember those early morning kisses with fondness now, now that Veth is alive.

Veth makes a sleepy, contented sound, and one ear twitches against his cheek. “Everything all right?”

“I’d like to kiss you,” Yeza says quietly. He remembers what she said before, about how she hadn’t been sure about kissing. “I mean, if you’d like to be kissed.”

“You don’t have to,” Veth says, sounding apologetic. “I mean, I know my face is… a lot. Even if you can’t see it right now.”

Yeza reaches out in the dark and cups Veth’s face, tracing over her cheekbones with his thumbs. “I’d like to kiss you,” he says again. “But only if you’d like to be kissed.”

“I—“ The pause lasts for the space of three heartbeats. “Please. Please kiss me,” she says, close enough that her breath ghosts over his lips.

Yeza starts off with a gentle brush of lips against hers, almost as clumsy as their first kiss down by the river years and years ago. When he pulls back, she’s the one to chase his lips with hers, to tangle her hands in his hair, to deepen the kiss, as if all she had needed was that first kiss to blaze the path for her. Veth’s new teeth are a bit tricky, but then so had been making acid for the first time, and he had survived that with most of his eyebrows intact and only a few interesting scars.

Veth makes a sound in the back of her throat, and her body may be different but the sounds she makes when she’s aroused are the same. She breaks the kiss and leans her forehead against his collarbone, her heavy breathing nearly in sync with his.

“Do you want to—“

“ _Yes_ ,” Veth says forcefully, and Yeza isn’t surprised. Veth’s appetites had always been healthy in the regard. “I didn’t think I ever would. Not… the way I am, and not without you. But you’re _here_ , and I _want_ to. Just— could we keep it dark in here?”

“Whatever makes you comfortable,” Yeza says immediately. “But your shape doesn’t disgust me, you know that right? You’re _you._ You could be a manticore, or a gnoll, or those fish things you fought in the ocean….”

“Merrow,” Veth interjects.

“Merrow. You could be one of those and I would still love you.” He tilts his head thoughtfully, knowing she can see it in the dark. “Though it would make sex very interesting.”

She laughs like he knew she would, and gives him a friendly shove. He had thought he would never hear that laugh again, except for in dreams. There’s still a part of him that wonders if he is dreaming. Veth is _alive_. The body he knew is gone, but that hardly matters at all. Her mind survived. Her _soul_ survived. The brilliant person who collected shiny things and made necklaces out of buttons and helped him with his alchemy and gave him a son and whom he loved the most in all the world, the way that meat loved salt as the saying went, was _alive_.

“I know,” she says when she finally stops laughing. “Just…. I don’t know if I’m ready to see you seeing what I really look like, that way. Not yet. And in the dark I can see you, but you can’t see me. Maybe that’s unfair of me to ask—“

Yeza shakes his head quickly. “Whatever makes you comfortable, Veth, I’ll do it. It’s hardly any different than that time with the blindfolds, honestly.”

“Which time?” Veth asks, and Yeza can almost hear her smiling in the dark. He aims toward that smile and kisses her again.

Her hands tangle in his hair for a brief instant before roaming over his skin, touching him everywhere she can reach. He knows how she feels because he’s doing the same, both of them exploring, learning each other again, but it’s more than that. It’s reassurance that the other is _there_ , that this isn’t a dream or a delusion. This isn’t just about sex. This is _confirmation._

Yeza’s scientific mind notes the differences between the body before him now and his memories of Veth’s previous form, he can’t stop himself from doing that as he frantically removes her smallclothes and and she removes his. Her skin is a little bit rougher as he kisses down the column of her throat. Her breasts don’t quite fill his hand the way they used to, and the nipples are smaller when he runs his thumbs over them, when he plucks at them with his lips and worries them with his teeth. The angle of her hipbones is sharper as his hands slide lower, as he moves down her body towards the warm, slick center of her, which tastes stronger then he remembers as he works at her diligently with his tongue. None of these changes are good or bad, they just _are_ , just a part of the woman he loves, the woman who sighs and gasps and moans beneath him, whose legs wrap around him and whose hands hold his head where she needs it.

Veth comes with a cry that sounds like a laugh, like she can’t believe anything could ever feel this good, and he remembers the first time he made her make that sound, one summer afternoon laying in the tall grass underneath the apple trees. There had been apple blossoms in her hair and her skin had glowed in the sun and Yeza had fallen in love with her all over again, just like he had every day since their first clumsy kiss.

Veth pulls him up for a kiss in the present and his tongue dodges her teeth neatly as she makes that needy sound low in her throat again. It’s the only warning he gets before she rolls him over onto his back, before she takes him in hand and guides him into her. He gasps and clutches at her as her heat surrounds him, as she moves against him at a frantic pace. He’s not going to last very long, not at this rate, and he tightens his grip on her as if afraid she’ll vanish under his hands, his back arching. “Veth…”

Veth holds him close, claws pricking at his skin. “I’m here, Yeza,” she breathes into his ear, voice trembling. “I’m here, I’ve got you, I’m here.”

“I’m here,” he echoes, whispering his reassurance into her shoulder as he thrusts up into her. “I’m here. You’re here. Veth, you’re here, you’re here with me, I’m yours, I’m—“ His words cut off with a strangled gasp as the pleasure overtakes him, as tears spill down his face, as they both shake in each other’s arms. She laughs into his neck even as he feels her tears trail down his shoulders.

“I love you,” he whispers in Halfling as he strokes her hair and her long, pointed ears.

“I love you too,” she whispers back.

They fall asleep still joined together, tears and sweat drying on their skin. Yeza dreams of a house that’s bright and warm, of Luke running barefoot in the grass outside, of Veth standing next to him. Her form shifts in the dream, sometimes green and sharp toothed, her pointed ears twitching with delight, sometimes soft and curvy, her brown skin warmed by the sun, her teeth white and even. They’re the same person, and Yeza holds them close in the perfect afternoon of the dream, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr and angel_in_ink on Twitter if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


End file.
